


A Tree Grows in Bed-Stuy

by james



Category: Hawkeye (Comics)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Gen, Humor, improper dog feeding techniques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 18:45:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16540097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/james/pseuds/james
Summary: In which Kate wonders if Clint could be kept out of trouble with coloring books.  And there is reverse-stealing of a tree.  (Not the Christmas kind.)





	A Tree Grows in Bed-Stuy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [samalander](https://archiveofourown.org/users/samalander/gifts).



Kate let herself into Clint's apartment, not bothering to knock. She'd learned quickly that Clint would either not have his hearing aids in, or he'd be asleep in the middle of the day, or not home. He'd given her a key, after all, although that might have had more to do with her complaining about breaking in through his windows in the middle of winter. (She knew Clint probably expected her to break in, part of his mentoring program that seemed to be a mishmash of circus tricks, Russian spy assassin tricks, and his own lack of social awareness that some people liked walking in a front door, after using an actual key.)

She liked the training and she secretly liked his mentoring style of just throwing Kate into situations and letting her figure something out, and occasionally offering helpful commentary or assistance. But she also liked not standing outside on an icy fire escape during a blizzard while Clint slept under ten blankets on his couch, not hearing Lucky barking in joy at seeing Kate turning into a snowperson.

Screw that, now Kate just let herself in. The worst thing that could possibly happen would involve Clint in his underwear (or..not....) and she'd seen worse. Or better. That stuff was all fuzzy in her head, still, and she hadn't quite worked out what she felt about it. But mostly if Clint was wandering around in his underwear, he was also talking to himself about where his pants might be and then she'd hear him before she could get the door completely open and see something she might or might not want to see.

As she pushed the door open, Kate paused to listen. Lucky was already running towards her, the click of his nails on the floor her first warning before the loud, happy bark as he shoved his nose past the door and into her hand. She gave the dog a pat and tried to get into the apartment. “You're a menace,” she told him, trying to move past him with a gentle knee to his head.

Lucky grinned up at her, tongue already slobbering all over her hand, so she stopped and petted him properly, rubbing his ears and scratching. “Has Clint fed you any actual dog food today? This week?” The happy look on the dog's face told her no, probably not. Kate looked up to see if Clint were home, and found him staring at her with an confused expression. It was better than his 'please don't yell at me' look, which as soon as she thought it, Clint's face slid into.

“What did you--” Kate stopped. In the middle of Clint's living room, right in front of the television, was a large potted plant.

“Do you like it?” Clint asked, tone that little-bit loud that said his aids were half-busted again. He grinned at her with obviously-forced cheer, like he hadn't done anything weird at all.

“That's a _tree_.” Kate stepped closer, not too close because if she did maybe she would somehow end up with ownership of the thing, like she seemed to have done with the dog. Okay, so, she liked Lucky, even if his owner didn't understand about things like dog food and dog treats and items that were made _specifically for dogs._ Most of Lucky's toys were shoes, old arrows, and a Bengals hat that neither Kate nor Clint knew the origins of.

Clint frowned at her, then frowned at the tree. That was in a pot. In his living room. “It's a plant,” he began, but his tone clearly said he had no idea.

“Why do you have a tree in a pot, in your apartment?”

With a guilty shrug, Clint just said, “Seemed like it would be nice?” Slowly he looked around the apartment, as though he were actually acknowledging the bare walls, trashed floor, and the total lack of anything that said a responsible grown-up lived there.

Kate put her hands on her hips. She'd babysat a five year old once. She could never decide if Clint were easier, or harder.

She'd gotten paid twenty-five dollars for two hours with the five year old.

“I'm pretty sure it's a tree.” She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture; a few moments' searching told her that yes, indeed it was. She looked at the picture again, then back at the tree. “That's a maple tree.”

“Um. That's...good? Right?” Clint gave her a hesitant grin. Dear Lord, give her five year olds who took naps.

Not that the kid she'd babysat had taken a nap or anything, but they'd had fun coloring. Maybe Clint needed a coloring book.

“Where are you going to plant it?”

Clint blinked at her. Kate put her face into her hands. 

“You were going to keep it in a pot, right here in your living room, weren't you?”

“That's why I got a plant,” Clint said, but the tone of his voice told her that five year olds stealing cookies weren't the only sneaky people on the planet. She glared. This was no accidental tree. Clint knew exactly what he had and what he was doing, except for the part where he clearly shouldn't be left unattended.

“You were going to grow your own arrows, weren't you?” Pointing a finger at him, his guilty expression told her everything. “You bought a tree so you could grow arrows. Well, what are you going to do when it outgrows its pot? Plant it on the roof?”

Kate watched in horror as Clint's face lit up.

She put her own face back in her hand. “No, no, no. NO.”

Coloring book, she told herself. Don't forget the crayons. She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, told herself this was just another training exercise. _How Not To Strangle Clint Barton._ Natasha had warned her. Although she had a feeling Natasha probably just gave in to the urge, sometimes.

It took an hour of looking on her phone at articles and graphs and pictures, learning more about green roofs than she had ever wanted to know, before Kate was finally able to convince Clint that renovating the roof of the apartment building to withstand a large growing tree wasn't feasible. “That's for small trees, Clint. Maples are not _small_ ,” she'd said more than once, when Clint had gotten excited about boxes and linings and bushes for Lucky to pee on. 

She'd also had to forbid him from calling Stark, ignoring how he claimed that the tech genius could probably come up with something, because Dear God all she did not need in her life was for Tony Stark to take over the management of one maple sapling. Pepper would kill her. Stark Tower, this building, and fifty other buildings across New York would all end up with giant redwoods, or something, growing out of their roofs.

Eventually even Clint had had to agree that no plan that involved putting the tree on the roof was really feasible, though she pretended she didn't notice him making notes about box vegetable gardens. At least those wouldn't require trucking in dirt – maybe they could get SHIELD to do a heli-drop, she thought idly, but knew better than to say anything out loud. Clint would probably ask, or just steal one and do it.

“We're going to have to plant it in the ground,” Kate told him, again, still patiently. She was only feeling patient because she'd badgered him into ordering Chinese, and she'd found a bag of dog food under the counter to distract Lucky away from her noodles with.

It wasn't working, but she felt like at least she'd tried. Lucky was currently eating one of Clint's egg rolls, so.

“There's no yard here,” Clint reminded her, like that was magically going to make it okay to put it on the roof instead.

“There's the park down on Dekalb. It's big enough we can sneak a tree in without anybody noticing. And close enough you can take Lucky there on wa-- that thing where you do the thing that he loves doing which I am not saying or we'll have to do it now. And he can pee on it so it will still be part of the family, and when it gets big enough, you can cut branches off and make your arrows.”

Lucky looked up at her, a piece of eggroll wrapper on his muzzle. She swore he looked suspicious, like he knew what word she wasn't saying. She stuck her tongue out at him.

“We can't just go down there and plant a tree, though, without making people suspicious.” Kate frowned at the tree. What the even fuck, Clint, she thought. There were thousands of stray cats in the city, why couldn't he bring one of those home. Or another dog. Another archer, even. She could use a sidekick.

“You'd be surprised what you can do if you just act like you have permission,” Clint told her, grinning. “As long as you don't run into any grandmas, nobody will bother you no matter what you're doing.”

Kate shook her head. “First of all, I don't want to know. But why grandmas?”

“They notice _everything_ , know everybody who ever walks into their neighborhood ever, so know damn well if you belong there or not. If you're new, you're _interesting._ Which means questions.” Clint shuddered. “It's like some spooky old lady superpower. Every time I've ever got into trouble on a mission, it was because some grandma saw me and yelled what was I doing, who was I, did I belong there, could I be a dear and help her move something heavy, did I want any kapustnica.” Clint looked at her, straight and serious. “Never turn down a grandma's kapustnica. You can kill a guy right next door and she won't even blink at the cops, if you're nice and sweet and loved her soup enough to eat two bowls.”

The sad thing was, Kate was pretty sure he wasn't joking. “Well, then how do we avoid them?”

“We wait until they're asleep.”

~ ~ ~

And that was how Kate found herself breaking into a public park at 2 a.m. to reverse-steal a tree.


End file.
